


Again and Again

by orangeberries45



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 04:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeberries45/pseuds/orangeberries45
Summary: They were always finding themselves going back for each other, again and again and again.





	Again and Again

* * *

 

If it were for any other person, she thinks, she would’ve thought twice before trading her safety away.

Even if that person was the legendary Luke Skywalker.

It’s a trait she couldn’t quite shake, not after all the years spent alone in Jakku. She’s been forced to fend by herself for as long as she can remember – it shouldn’t be surprising that the need self-preservation was rooted deep within her psyche.

Training to be a Jedi, fighting for the resistance, none of this ebbs her survival instinct away. It is this part of her that makes the thought of destroying the First Order – and even killing Kylo Ren – palatable.

That is, until they have him again, and all she knows is that she’s willing to throw everything away to bring him back.

They can’t have Finn. Even if it means, they get to keep her.

* * *

He’s getting really sick of waking up in the med bay.

Not that he holds any grudges against the over-worked and criminally under appreciated Resistance medics, mind you. It’s just that it seems like every time he clashes with the red lightsaber-wielding bastard, this is where he ends up.

For once he’d like to wipe the smirk right off of Kylo Ren’s face.

He’s also not surprised to find her missing again. She’s probably off globetrotting with Luke Skywalker, sharpening her ability to use the force or something – while he lies here, not doing much of anything.

He doesn’t begrudge her for that. But what he does begrudge her for is the radio silence.

It is only after he threatens to barge into General Leia’s office, does Poe come clean about what she’d done. Despite Poe’s reassurances, all he is left with is guilt – the same he had felt at Maz Kanata's castle all those years ago.

But that doesn’t stop him from going back after her.

Again.

* * *

It’s always the same with him – the same taunts, same tactics, same training. Well, whatever it is that he passes off as training anyway. And she has no option but to listen to the same tirades, day in and day out.

Sometimes he’ll talk about her family. Sometimes he’ll talk about the Resistance. Sometimes, he’ll even talk about Finn.

She knows she shouldn’t rise to his bait, and she repeats Luke’s meditation rituals as a mantra to keep those emotions at bay. Sometimes, she thinks that the only thing that keeps her sane.

But there are rare times when he succeeds.

“The first time I was playing around. The second time was for you. There won’t be a third time.”

It is then she gets her first taste of the dark side.

* * *

He reckons he should listen to Rose and stay hidden.

He still has the element of surprise on his side, and he could probably catch a couple of stormtroopers unaware. Hell, he could even steal their uniforms and infiltrate the base – it was practically Resistance protocol these days.

But everything goes out the window when he sees her. He must have played this situation a million different times in his head. But he never expected this.

It seems almost surreal to him that Rey – his Rey – would be fighting for the wrong side. He never thought the day would come when she would be brandishing a red lightsaber like that psychopath.

His body moves as if on autopilot, despite Rose cursing at him through his comlink to stand his ground. Though the TIE fighter missiles were deafening and errant blaster fires were barely missing their target, he makes his way towards her.

“REY!”

* * *

She couldn’t see him, but she could sense him. The familiarity, the warmth – it was so Finn-like, it hurt.

But she also knew not to get her hopes up. This was probably another one of Snoke’s sick ploys, and she’d be damned if she fell for it again.

Finn wasn’t here.

Not the real one, anyway.

She’d lost count of all the times she’d been ‘found’ by Finn, only to find Kylo Ren instead. And each time, she finds herself losing a little of what she’d remembered of him – her fond memories giving way to Ren’s warped manipulations.

But then she hears him.

She nearly misses it in all the pandemonium at the base, but her name rings loud again.

She sees him.

* * *

It takes all of three words to nearly stop him in his tracks.

“You aren’t real.” She says it with such conviction, that he knows she thinks it’s true.

He wants to reach for her – to touch her, hug her, and hold her – anything to prove that he is here. That he really is here, that he isn’t some fiction of her imagination.

But something prevents him from taking another step. It’s takes him longer than it should to realize that it is the force. That it was Rey using the force on him.

He should stop struggling, he thinks – maybe even step back. But he’d never been one to give up and there was no way he was leaving here without her.

So, he persists.

Even though he has no idea if this will work. Even though with each step, he feels as if he has the weight of the Falcon attached to his back – driving him to the ground. Even though it feels like he’ll collapse long before he gets to her.

But he keeps going anyway.

* * *

She wants to believe that this isn’t him.

Perhaps that would make it easier to watch him suffer, this stranger who wears the face of her Finn.

* * *

He doesn’t know where he draws the strength to grab her hand. A small part of him thinks that if she wanted to kill him, she already could have.

“Come with me.”

He sees the first flickers of recognition in her eyes, as he feels the Force around him weaken before releasing him altogether.

She seems uncertain? Relieved? Happy? He can’t really tell before she grips his hand as well.

But that’s when he sees him. He spots a stormtrooper pulling the trigger on a blaster aimed at Rey, out of the corner of his eye.

He can’t lose her again. Not this way. Not here. Not now.

So he doesn’t think twice when he pushes her away, taking the blast himself.

* * *

It’s been four days since the Resistance had swooped in to rescue them, two days since they’ve gotten back to the base.

And he’s still not awake.

She wants to rage at him for being so stupidly self-sacrificing. So what if she was going to be hit by blaster fire? She had the Force. He had a leather jacket!

It is only when Luke comes to talk to her privately that she finally allows herself to break down. She recounts every painful memory of her time with the First Order – of all that Kylo Ren and Snoke had put her through. And of what had happened that day at the base.

She says she doesn’t think she has it in her to forgive herself, if something were to happen to him.

Luke listens, with an understanding nod here and there. It’s comforting to not be offered empty platitudes. He sits and waits with her, until Poe comes running to let her know that Finn will be okay. It is then she allows herself to breathe freely again.

When the medics finally allow her in to visit, she can’t help but thread her fingers through his.

And she has no intention of letting go any time soon.

* * *

Of course he’d be in the med bay again. He should be used to this by now.

But this time, he wakes to the sleeping form of a familiar face. She’s slouched over the side of his bed, her fingers still tangled with his own.

And that’s when he realizes how much she means to him – this girl he’d ran into all those years ago on the planet with all that sun and sand. He doesn’t think he could live with failing her again.

He’d never been one for sappy confessions, but he needs to tell her. Maybe one day he’ll finally work up the courage to tell her how he truly he feels.

“Loving you was easy. Losing you was the hard part,” he thinks.

She’s still deep asleep.

But he has a feeling she already knows.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing some FinnRey. Let me know what you guys think!


End file.
